5. Will the Minister provide an update on trunk road preparedness in advance of potential adverse weather conditions? OAQ54613

Yes. Winter preparedness is vital for our transport networks. We are in regular contact with local authorities to monitor salt stock levels, ensuring that we can maintain the safety and reliability of the network. We also work closely with rail and bus companies so that the public transport system is prepared.

Thank you for your answer, Deputy Minister. Certainly in my constituency over recent weeks there's been a number of flooding issues where we've seen a number of road closures. And what constituents come to me about is the fact that they can't get information about where roads are closed, whether it be trunk roads or local-authority-responsibility roads. Now, I know the Minister has previously mentioned when he's come to the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee that communication is something that he would like to see improved for planned roadworks. I appreciate that flooding is not planned, but it would be useful, would you not agree, to have a one-stop shop where Traffic Wales can list all road closures, whether they are planned or in the event of flooding incidents? And I would hope that you would agree it's not beyond the wit of man—

Or woman.

—or woman, Joyce, to have the facility to allow local authorities to pass on information to Traffic Wales's website, so that we've got that one-stop shop for any kind of road disruption.

Yes, I'd agree with that, and that is supposed to be happening. The Twitter feeds, certainly of the trunk road agencies that I follow, are regularly updating on both planned and unplanned road closures. So, if the Member has some particular examples of where that's failing to happen, I'd be happy to look into it further.

Deputy Minister, as the winter comes, the hours of darkness get longer and, therefore, we need to be looking at driving in the hours of darkness, and we would, obviously, rely upon street lighting, where it is available, to be operationally effective, particularly along the trunk roads. Now, in Port Talbot the streetlighting and the overhead section has been taken away for several months. The stumps still stand there and in the darkness and the night you can't see the stumps because it's that dark. When will the Welsh Government actually be putting the lights back in place so that elevated section of the M4, which should be lit, is lit? It should be safer for drivers, particularly in an area that is criticised very much for the traffic congestion.

Well, certainly, the columns were cut down in April after one of them collapsed. The other structures were found to have failures that made them a safety risk. They were, therefore, removed. A report was then commissioned to look at what options were available to us, and found that in the 20 years since the lights have been in place the standards have changed and, in fact, by modern standards, it wouldn't have been built like that in the first place, and the view of the experts was that the section of road was overlit. They're now looking at what the options are, of how alternatives can be put in place and how we can bear cognisance to the decarbonisation agenda. So, we would possibly have lighting options using less energy. So, that is currently taking place. It will take some three months for the lighting columns to be ordered, so it's unlikely to happen this financial year. We are considering options in the meantime, particularly floodlighting, but that would need generators. But we are hoping to have some recommendations we can act on in the coming months.